


where they won't find you

by spacestationtrustfund



Series: Blackhawk [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 01:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4285230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/pseuds/spacestationtrustfund
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The best lies are made of truth. Natasha Romanov knows this only too well. She’s sick of lying and being lied to, and she’s sick of the people she’s grown to love being used against her. Hiding her emotions is the only way she knows to save herself.</p><p>-</p><p>Set after the first Avengers movie, when they all go their separate ways and Natasha runs off to France. Clint follows her, because he’s the only one who can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sound of a fist hitting her in the face and forcing her head back against the brick wall was a welcome memory, and Natasha allowed a small smile to play across her lips, knowing it would incense the man who had handcuffed her hands behind her back. She barely felt the pain stinging her cheek and stabbing at her jaw, she was so alive with the adrenaline thrill. This, she had missed this. Natasha smiled even wider, and the man hit her again with his fist. “Where are the children?” he hissed, pulling on her hair and yanking her head back, leering in her face.

“ _Pris_ ,” Natasha said simply, tailoring her accent so that she sounded convincingly French, the words falling easily out of her mouth, satisfyingly easy. “ _Ils sont hors de votre portée, et vous ne touchez jamais à nouveau_ .”

An ugly look crept across the man’s equally ugly face as she spoke. “Then,  _mademoiselle_ , I will have to hurt you instead of them.” He pulled a wickedly sharp knife from his pocket and held it next to her face, and Natasha sighed slightly. Her time here was no longer needed. Twisting her wrists behind her back, she prepared to strike, but before she could move there came the distinctive twang of an arrow being released and the man collapsed to the ground with the shaft buried in his throat.

Natasha dropped her fake accent as easily as she slipped the cold metal handcuffs from her wrists and tossed the aside, reaching for her gun, left on a table when the man had taken it from her. “I don’t need your help, Agent Barton.”

“I don’t doubt that.” There was a light note of humour in his voice. God, she had missed that voice, and she didn’t know if she wanted to hug him or cut his throat for interfering. “That isn’t why I’m here. Fury needs you to call in.”

“Why didn’t he call me?” She still didn’t turn around to see him, instead playing with the metal links of a fragment of chain left on the table, letting them slip through her fingers. “Why did he call you instead?”

She could hear Clint sigh from behind her. “Nat, you weren’t answering your phone. SHIELD has the best trackers, but you’re virtually untrackable when you want to be. Fury needed someone to find you. I volunteered.” His voice softened and she could hear him shifting his boots on the dusty floor of the warehouse. “Natasha, it’s been over a month and none of us have heard from you.”

“I was working,” Natasha said coolly, opening her hand and allowing the fragment of chain to drop to the dusty floor. “This son of a bitch,” and she nudged the fallen man with the toe of her shoe, “was selling young girls into prostitution. I’ve been busy, Clint.”

“I can tell you’ve been busy,” Clint said evenly. Natasha turned and glared at him. He looked relatively unchanged since their last meeting, although, unlike the last time she’d seen him, the bruises had gone and he had no new scars. Natasha raised her chin scornfully, feeling a sharp stab of pain lance through her jaw as she did. “Nat—Tasha—listen to me. It’s been a month. It’s time to come back.”

Natasha lowered her gaze again, feeling Clint’s eyes burning into her. “I’ll come back, if that’s what Fury wants, but if whatever he needs me to do has anything at all to do with Loki, I’m not staying.”

Clint ran his finger lightly over the string of his bow before replying. “Something happened that you didn’t tell me about.” It was a statement, not a question, which was just as well. Natasha didn’t do well with questions. She nodded crisply, and Clint sighed. “I promise, if it has anything to do with Loki, I’ll get you out of there myself, and Fury will be none the wiser.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I am more than capable of getting myself out of any situation,” Natasha replied firmly. “Where is Director Fury, by the way?”

“He’s back at headquarters at the moment,” Clint said awkwardly, replacing his bow and toying with the black gloves he always wore on missions. “He gave me a week to track you down.”

Natasha scoffed. “A week? He must think I’m getting soft.”

“It only took me three days.”

That made her hesitate, although she was careful not to let any emotion show on her face. “It appears we have time on our hands, then. Did you have a plan on what to do?” She winced involuntarily as another twinge of pain shot through her cheek. She forced herself not to touch it or to mention it. _Breathe, Natasha._ The adrenaline was fading rapidly.

Clint shook his head slightly. “I booked a room in a hotel. I had an inkling you were in France. There were reports of drug dealers and smugglers showing up mysteriously dead. I took a wild guess.”

Natasha pushed her hair out of her eyes, frowning slightly as she studied his face. “Well then,” she said, careful to keep her voice impassive, “ _allons-y_ .”

 

***

 

They took a taxi back to the hotel, and Natasha was able to slip the driver an extra couple of folded bills in order not to comment on her gun, Clint’s bow, or the bruises forming along the line of her cheekbone. It was starting to sting when Clint lead her to his room, and she held her hand against her cheek, hoping to soothe the incessant pain.

Clint disappeared into the bathroom and returned a moment later with a wet cloth. He had Natasha sit on the edge of one of the beds and gently prised her fingers away from her face, then washed the dirt an blood off her skin. His hands were gentle, and Natasha couldn’t help thinking of the impossibly irony of the fact hat human hands could heal just as easily as they could hurt.

“Are you going to tell me about what happened to make you practically vanish for over a month?” Clint asked quietly as he cleaned the last flakes of dried blood from her cheek. “When I saw you last, you seemed fine. What did Loki do to you?”

Natasha bit back the stinging remarks hovering on the tip of her tongue. “It doesn’t matter. We all know he’s a monster.”

Clint raised his eyebrows, and Natasha could tell she hadn’t entirely convinced him, but he wisely didn’t push her further. Natasha stood up and kicked off her shoes, taking the knife and the extra money from the sole of her boots and placing her possessions on the small table next to the bed she supposed was hers. “Two beds, Clint. You knew you would find me, didn’t you?”

A slight smile crossed his face. “Like I said, I took a wild guess.”

Natasha had to force herself not to smile back. Instead, she walked into the bathroom. A glance in the mirror showed that the bruising was better than it felt, but worse than she had anticipated. She splashed water on her face, then rinsed the blood from under her fingernails. When she returned to the main room, Clint was still sitting where she had left him. He stood and walked over to her once she reappeared. “Why France, Natasha? You aren’t on a mission, are you?”

“France,” Natasha echoed, raising her eyebrows. “You know why France. And no, I’m not on a mission, and I’m not planing on killing anyone else, if that’s what you were wondering.”

Clint sighed again and rubbed his face; he was still wearing his gloves and Natasha bit back a fond smile. Assassins didn’t have fond feelings for their co-workers. Then again, she wasn’t an assassin anymore. “Natasha. Tell me about what happened with Loki.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind she recognised that had anyone else spoken to her that way, no matter who they were, they would have received a fist or elbow to the face and certainly no answer. But it was still bothering her more than she wanted to admit, so she stepped around Clint and sat down on the bed she had claimed as hers. “When we had him captured, I decided I would try some of my interrogation tactics on him, to try to find out his plan. It worked a little too well.”

Clint sighed heavily and sat down on the other bed, facing her. Natasha avoided his eyes as she continued. “I told him about how I owed you, of course, and how I wanted to prove myself as one of the heroes. The best lies are made of truth,” she added bitterly. “He told me that I could never redeem myself. That I had done too much wrong to be able to ever balance it out with the good I did for everyone. It worked, of course. I got him to tell me everything I wanted to know. But he talked about you—he said he would make you kill me, and you would enjoy it.” Natasha dropped her gaze to her hands, clenched tightly in her lap, knuckles turning white from the pressure. “He knew right where to hit me, and he hit me hard.”

“Loki is clever with lies,” Clint said finally, his voice low and serious. “It’s how he operates. He was trying to manipulate you, just like he manipulated everyone else. Nat, I would die before I hurt you again.”

Natasha’s head snapped up, sudden anger surging through her. “That’s the problem! I  _know_ you would die for me. I would die for you. But I’m sick of us being used as weapons against each other. When you were being controlled, I could have easily killed you. We all had orders to kill, you know. Or you could have killed me, and then Loki would have gotten what he wanted, and it would be just like how it was supposed to be in the beginning.”

“That’s the life we lead, Agent Romanov,” Clint said gently. “It’s your choice, but it’s how it is.”

“No, that’s how it is for you,” Natasha said, her voice low and dangerous. “I don’t have a choice, Clint. I owe too much to leave any time I want to take a break. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Natasha stood and walked to the window, looking out over the city. There was no fire escape visible, but the brickwork was old and crumbling. It would be good enough to suit her purposes. She slid the window open, pulled her shoes back on, and stuck her gun in the waistband of her pants as she started to slide out of the window. Clint’s expression didn’t change, but there was a slight catch in his voice. “Where are you going?”

Natasha hesitated with one leg out the window. “Shopping,” she said finally, then pushed herself off, scrambling down the side of the building and hitting the ground already running, determined not to cry.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

She spent the last of her money buying clothes that weren’t ripped or bloody, then returned to the hotel as the sun was setting, climbing back through the window. Clint was lying on his bed watching the television, which was showing scenes of an abandoned school and a narration in French. Natasha recognised the place as somewhere she’d been, to take out a drug dealer a few weeks previously. Clint was watching raptly, seemingly unperturbed by her entrance.

“You speak French?” Natasha inquired by way of a greeting, depositing the clothes on her bed and replacing the gun on her dresser.

Clint looked over at her and raised his eyebrows slightly before returning his attention to the screen. “You’re not the only one who’s full of surprises, Agent Romanov. But yes, I picked it up a while back.”

Natasha took a new set of clothes into the bathroom and closed the door. She changed quickly, then rolled up her old clothes and shoved them into the tiny cabinet under the sink. By the time anyone found them, she would be long gone. When she walked back into the bedroom, Clint had turned off the television but was still lying on his bed. Natasha noticed that his bow and quiver, along with his gloves and jacket, were resting on the bed as well. She crossed over to him and curled her feet under her as she sat down, leaning against the footboard. Clint moved his legs to make room for her. “What is it?”

Natasha looked down at the bow, allowing her hand to trace the smooth contours of the metal and run her fingertips along the length of the string. “Do you suppose we could get to the roof from here?”

“We’re pretty high up, so I think so,” Clint answered. He watched Natasha as he examined his weapons, then flicked his eyes back up to her face. “Is there a particular reason you would want to get onto the roof?”

Natasha picked up the bow and held it both of her hands, raising her gaze to look directly into Clint’s clear blue eyes. “I want you to teach me how to shoot.”

 

***

 

They shot at a makeshift target for several hours, until Natasha’s arms were sore and her fingers were starting to bleed from pulling back the string. By that time it had gotten dark enough that she couldn’t see the target clearly, and she knew better than to waste arrows that Clint might need later. Her arms were aching when she slid down the side of the building and back into the room, Clint right behind her, carrying the bow and quiver slung over his shoulder.

Natasha looked thoughtfully at the door while Clint put his bow back in its case and slid it into a drawer. “I don’t suppose this is the sort of hotel where we have to watch to make sure we aren’t attacked, but I would like to lock the doors.”

“Understandable,” Clint said, going over to the door. He opened it and looked out before closing it again and locking it. “I paid the manager a pretty hefty sum to keep his mouth shut. No talk about weapons or fights, or anything like that. And certainly no talk about, ah, ‘red headed women with copious amounts of weapons’ who happened to visit me.”

Natasha smiled in earnest at that, and shoved Clint gently on the shoulder. “I knew you were expecting me.”

“Hoping, more like,” Clint admitted, shoving her back. “I’ve missed you, Nat. We all have. Steve’s been practically insufferable to be around, and even Fury’s been getting a bit pensive.”

“Fury? Don’t make me laugh,” Natasha scoffed. “You know he trusts me about as far as he can throw me, and unless I’m feeling particularly flexible at the moment, that won’t be very far.”

“Natasha, only you would think that making you laugh would be a bad thing.”

Natasha smirked as she lay down on her bed, stretching her legs out and wincing. France had been a welcome relapse, but it had left her with more than her fair share of injuries. She examined the hotel ceiling, her eyes tracing the patterns that had been swirled into the plaster. “How’s the rest of the team? Banner, Stark, Thor, Co—” She almost asked about Coulson, but stopped mid-word, cursing herself at her own stupidity. “The rest of the team? Assuming you’ve heard from them more than I have?”

“Fine. I haven’t heard from most of them any more than you have, although I wasn’t the one running off to France. From what I heard, Stark and Pepper are taking a vacation, Banner is still working on that data-encryption programme he showed you before you left, and Thor’s nowhere to be seen.”

“Good to know.” Natasha sighed again and closed her eyes. Her cheek was starting to hurt again, and she tried not to touch it. “I’m going to try to go to sleep. Wake me up if anything happens—and I do mean anything.”

Clint exhaled slowly, and with her eyes closed Natasha could picture his face. _Focus, Natasha._ “I’ll wake you up.”

“Don’t waste time playing the hero,” Natasha added chidingly.

Clint was smirking, she could tell, even with her eyes shut, blackness all she could see. “News flash, Nat: I am the hero. You and I, that’s who we are.”

“I hope so,” Natasha muttered quietly, turning over so that she was facing away from him, and it hurt her somewhere deep inside how much she hoped what Clint said was considered true.

Of course, the dreams that haunted her refused to let her sleep in peace, or even what could pass for it, given that Natasha had seen terrors that could make the bloodiest wars seem peaceful in her mind.

It started the same way it always did, with her tied to a post, the rough cords binding her to the concrete digging into her skin. Ropes—what amateur would use be stupid enough to use ropes to bind her now? She could easily pull out the hidden knives she carried and slice through them. But at that point, she wasn’t Natasha Romanov. She was still Natalia Romanova, and she was scared.

“ _Natalia, vy doch_ _’_ _sobaki, pochemu vy pytayetes_ _’_ _izbezhat_ _’_ _menya? Vy dolzhny znat_ _’_ _, chto teper_ _’_ _vy ne mozhete uyti_. ” His voice was as rough as the ropes, and Natasha shrank away in fear and anger. The man slapped her across the face, the sound echoing through the deserted warehouse.

Her captor switched back to English, harsh and grating on her ears. “Perhaps you understand the other language better, you filthy whore? He will not be able to save you forever, Natalia. It is time you grew up and learned to fight for yourself.” Natasha struggled more against her bonds as the man came closer and closer, his hands grasping her by the upper arms, but she couldn’t pull away.

Natasha woke up in terror, eyes wide with fear. The memory was as clear in her mind as any of the happier memories she’d had in more recent years. She reached up and wiped her face, and her hand came away damp with sweat. Natasha sucked in a deep breath and realised she was shaking. Her hands were trembling.

She could hear Clint breathing next to her, and spent an agonising moment debating with herself on whether or not to wake him. The still-haunting dream was enough to encourage her, and she slid out of bed, walking over to Clint. Natasha reached out and placed her hand on his forehead, knowing that he wouldn’t want to wake up too abruptly. “Clint. Clint, wake up.”

His eyes snapped open. “Nat. What is it?” Silently, he started to reach for his bow, still concealed in the top drawer of the dresser, but Natasha grabbed his wrist to stop him.

“It’s fine, I just woke up.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but she didn’t want to worry him. He had spent enough time worrying about her, enough that she would never be able to repay him for any of it.

Clint groaned and reached blindly towards the alarm clock, changing his mind halfway through the motion and taking hold of Natasha’s wrist. “What time is it, Tasha?”

Natasha shook her head. “I don’t know.” She was still shaking, and the memories of Natalia Romanova were still seared into the forefront of her memory. “I—I had a dream again. More of a memory.”

She could see his eyes focus on her at those words, but he kept the pity from his gaze. Natasha was glad of that; she hated when anyone showed her pity that she did or didn’t deserve, and Clint was no exception. “Russia?”

Natasha nodded, focusing on controlling herself so as not to allow the tears to fall from her eyes. “Yes, before I was anything but a . . . before I was anything.”

Clint closed his eyes briefly before opening them again and releasing her wrist. “Okay. I, ah, come here.” He shifted over slightly so that there was enough room for them both, and Natasha hesitantly slid under the blanket next to him. She had stopped shaking, but she knew if she closed her eyes the warehouse would flash back up before her vision. It was always old abandoned warehouses with her, she thought bitterly as she settled herself more comfortably. Clint started to move his arm out of her way, but Natasha caught hold of it and pulled him closer, seeking the reassurance of his presence.

“I’m sorry about waking you up,” Natasha whispered, knowing that she would have never thought of sharing a bed with him in her own mind, although she couldn’t stop thinking that, despite her resistance against connections, there were some benefits of friendship that she wouldn’t want to lose. “I shouldn’t have.”

“That’s fine,” Clint mumbled, and Natasha felt his breath stirring her hair. “It’s always fine, Nat. You don’t have to hide stuff like that from me. I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about, and I won’t make fun of you.”

“I know.” Natasha closed her eyes again, and the darkness stayed dark. She could still feel the ropes cutting into her skin, but when she tried not to think about it, she could feel Clint’s arm against her side instead. “I’d want you to do the same thing for me.”

They lay there in the darkness for a moment longer, and Natasha thought about how ironic it was that friendship was the one thing that had hurt her the most. When she was Natalia Romanova, the only thing that could hurt her was pain. But when she was Natasha Romanov, hurting Clint would hurt her more than any torture ever would. Loki had known that, and that had been one of the reasons she had fled the country again. No strings, no ties, not friendships. That was the safest thing for an assassin to have.

But she wasn’t an assassin any more, was she? No, she was still the Black Widow, but she was one of the heroes now. She was the good guy, the one who saved people and told her friends in the middle of the night when she’d woken up terrified because of all the memories of the time when she hadn’t been that kind of person.

Natasha kept her eyes closed, and watched the memory of the warehouse fade. It was just another time she’d been captured. There was no shortage of those memories. They had no power to hurt her. She kept her eyes closed, reassured that she was in France, not Russia, not captured but free to go, although she didn’t know right then if she wanted to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is wondering . . . the Russian means something along the lines of "you daughter of a dog, why did you try to escape me? You should know by now you cannot get away" and I did the best I could from my old Russian textbook, because my Russian is about as bad as anyone else's is. Russian is not my forte. :)
> 
> x Mochi


	3. Chapter 3

When she woke up, Natasha’s first impression was that something was off. The feeling of perpetual aloneness was gone, and for a moment she was confused, because it didn’t bother her. Natasha was used to waking up fully aware, a remnant of her training that she didn’t think would ever leave her, but this time she was displaced, relaxed—and that was what forced her to snap back into her trained killer mode.

Clint was still asleep, and with his eyes closed he looked much calmer, almost happy. It hit her that hadn’t seen Clint truly smile in longer than she could remember at the moment. Trying to remember what had happened before only made her more and more bitter each time she tried. Natasha might have been many things, but nostalgic was not one of them. Despite this, Natasha didn’t try to repress a smile as she watched her sleeping friend. She hadn’t had another flashback, and she hadn’t dreamed at all. Natasha leaned forward and pressed her lips briefly to Clint’s forehead before sliding out of bed, hastily changing her clothes and preparing her gun, then taking the more practical route of the stairs in lieu of the window. She needed to move so that she could clear her head.

Natasha started running once she was out of the lobby. She ran until she couldn’t see the hotel anymore, trusting her inner sense of direction to be able to guide her back. She ducked into an alley that dead-ended in a solid brick wall twenty feet high that she could probably climb if she needed to, although the spy side of her screamed that it was a terrible place to get cornered. She ignored the inner voice as she crouched in a corner, burying her head in her hands.

She was too scared of commitment and attachment especially, that much was obvious, and there was something about trusting one person enough to go to them in the middle of the night when your past wouldn’t stop haunting you that demanded a certain level of commitment and attachment both. Natasha wasn’t supposed to get attached at all. It had never been her plan, but Clint somehow had always had a way of taking every one of her plans and turning them inside out. That was the reason she had decided to go to France in the first place—she hadn’t though he would follow her. She had underestimated him once again.

A shadow fell over her and Natasha look up, her eyes meeting those of the man standing in front of her. he held a long knife loosely concealed in one hand that she recognised as the same knife she’d left on the table in the warehouse where Clint had first found her. Natasha’s first instinct was to pull out her gun, but she knew that the noise of gunshots would only attract unwanted attention—which was likely why the man had a knife.

Natasha didn’t stand up, but she shifted forward slightly, away from the wall, all her senses on high alert. She would have to rely on her hand-to-hand combat skills fighting skill in this case—why hadn’t she thought to bring a knife? “ _Qu’est-ce que vous voulez_? ” she demanded, reclaiming the false accent she’d used before when she was playing Elisabeth Colombe. “ _Je n’ai pas d’argent_. ”

“ _Je ne veux pas d’argent_ ,” the man spat, slinking closer as he spoke and sliding the knife more firmly into his hand. “ _Je veux que tu viennes avec moi. Si vous restez calme, ce sera mieux pour nous deux_. ”

Natasha swallowed her contempt. They really thought they could just order her around like she was some helpless woman? Had she not proved herself to be a formidable enemy? “ _Vous aurez à venir et me attaquez_ ,” she replied evenly, surreptitiously shifting forward again, away from the wall.

The man sighed and stepped towards her, relaxing his grip on the knife. The movement was slight, barely noticeable in fact, but it was all Natasha needed. She kicked out swiftly and struck the man directly in the knee, then swept her other leg around to send him stumbling forwards. Natasha grabbed his knife-wielding arm and pulled herself to her feet, landing another couple of quick punches on his face for good measure. Then she shoved him forward, kicking the knife out of his hand, pushing him down until he hit the ground with both hands. Natasha slammed her heel down on each of his hands in quick succession, causing her victim to howl with pain.

Natasha kicked the knife one final time, sending it spinning away across the ground. “ _Et maintenant_ ,” she hissed savagely, “ _écoutez-moi. Laissez-moi tranquille_. ”

The man groaned and Natasha started running again, not even bothering to hide the satisfied smile that covered her face and increased the adrenaline surging through her. A good fight was always guaranteed to clear her mind and return her to herself.

 

***

 

Natasha chose again to go through the hotel’s main lobby, although she attracted as many stares as she had enemies. Holding her head high, Natasha walked to the stairs and didn’t look back until she had reached the door to their room. It was then that she realised she didn’t have a key or another way to get in other than breaking down the door. She knocked firmly twice before she could hear Clint unlocking the door from the other side. He pulled open the door and Natasha gasped. There was blood on his face and his skin was discoloured in a way Natasha knew meant he would have bruises later. Clint pulled her into the room and shut the door before turning to her. “Where the hell did you go, Nat?”

“I went for a walk,” Natasha said, still staring at Clint’s bruised and bloodied face. “What happened to you while I was gone?”

Clint swore and turned away, pacing the length of the room. “That’s a question I could ask you,” he shot back over his shoulder. “Your little French friends figured out we were staying her and decided to drop by to pay me a visit. I convinced them not to stay long, but they left me some souvenirs.” He gestured to himself, and Natasha noticed that the bruising extended to his neck and arms as well. “They gave me a warning, you know. Told me to get you the hell out of here or next time they wouldn’t be so forgiving. You made a lot of enemies, Natasha.”

Natasha sighed and chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “One of them decided to try to remind me that I’m being watched as well. It didn’t end well . . . for him. But I didn’t think they would find you here.”

“Natasha . . . ,” Clint said, a note of irritation creeping into his voice, “would it kill you to stay out of fights for a little while?” He walked over to his bed and sat down on it; Natasha sighed again and went to the bathroom, finding towels in the same tiny cabinet under the sink in which she’d stored her clothes. She returned to the bedroom and started to clean Clint’s injuries. He didn’t move to stop her, but his entire body was full of tension, and Natasha could tell she wasn’t forgiven. Not yet.

“Why didn’t you take care of these earlier?” asked Natasha as she wiped blood from one of the cuts as gently as she could.

Clint hissed when she pushed too hard with the cloth. “They made their escape through the window just as you arrived, Nat. I think you scared them off.” A small smile flashed across his face. It was brief, but it gave her hope. “I know I look like hell, but you should’ve seen the other guys.”

Natasha didn’t look up from her work. “Did you get a chance to use your bow?”

“No, the whole thing was too quick,” Clint said regretfully. Natasha finished washing his face and arms and replaced the towels, wondering briefly what the hotel management would think when they found all the bloodied towels and her old clothes.

“Natasha,” Clint said when she returned, “I don’t know exactly what you did to get these sorts of enemies, and it doesn’t matter. We should go tomorrow anyway. Fury said he should be able to pick us up then.”

Sudden dread swept through her. “Fury called? Did he have any messages for me?”

Clint shook his head, wincing at the movement. “No. Dammit, that hurts. Please don’t run off again, okay? I know you can defend yourself, but I don’t want Fury to think you’ve been stirring up trouble—even if that’s exactly what you’ve been doing.”

Natasha sat next to him and gently started massaging his shoulders and neck, allowing her fingers to rub around the recent bruises. “I know this will hurt, but it’ll speed up the recovery process,” she explained, deliberately ignoring his request. Clint closed his eyes as she worked on releasing some of the tension stored in his muscles. “You have to be careful, if you’re using your bow, because it can be easy to hurt yourself without even meaning to.”

“I don’t think I ever mean to hurt myself,” Clint said, his voice tight and strained. “It just . . . happens.”

Natasha focused on her hands, thinking again of how ironic it was that the same hands could heal had hurt just as easily only minutes before. “We have the rest of the day,” she reminded him. “Was there anything you needed to do before Fury picks us up?”

“I don’t know, maybe not get hurt?” Clint’s eyes were still closed. “Not getting hurt sounds pretty good to me.”

“That sounds good to me too,” Natasha replied honestly. Clint opened his eyes and Natasha raised her eyebrows at him. “Or we could do something stupid, unleash a power we can’t possibly hope to control, and get the shit beat out of us repeatedly while we try to save the human race.”

Clint smiled for real at that, and Natasha prided herself on her small victory. “Nat, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Clint said, and Natasha caught her breath, but she didn’t move away when he kissed her.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Natasha froze immediately, every muscle in her body tensing. She kept her eyes open, stock still. Clint stopped moving when he realised she wasn’t, then pulled back, a deeply apologetic look on his face that Natasha wanted to smack off. “I . . . sorry. I didn’t think—no, that sums it up pretty well.” His face was as red as her legacy, and she didn’t want to think about either.

“No, I think I should go,” Natasha said, wincing internally because that was the thing you weren’t supposed to say. “I’ll be back in a moment, okay?” And before he could answer, she ran to the window and launched herself out, flipping around to attach herself to the side of the building and scramble back up to the roof.

She’d played many roles in her years as a spy and assassin—she’d been the sexy prostitute, the innocent schoolgirl, the trophy girlfriend, the perfect seductress. She’d used sex as a weapon, and allowed no man or woman to control her. She’d slept around with those who matter and cut their throats as easily as she went to their beds. She was no novice, and simply kissing should _not_ have unnerved her. Nothing unnerved her.

Natasha sat down on the edge of the roof, letting her legs dangle over the side into empty air. She knew the concept of the word _friends_ , even if she was better without it. _Allies_ she knew, _allies_ was something she was good with. _Friends_ and _teammates_ were trickier, but she had discovered those as well. But _lovers_ or _partners—_ in a romantic sense—she had no idea how to work with. She didn’t know how to deal with love. It was never something she had been given as a child. She had never had an opportunity to learn about anything of the sort. Everything she’d done had been in the name of her profession.

Natasha was used to dealing with all sorts of surprises. It was how she operated. She’d dealt with all sorts of men before. Assassins, killers, liars, thieves, dictators, maniacs, and of course assholes. But Clint? She had no idea how to deal with something like that.

Natasha stayed on the roof for what felt like hours, until the sun was setting over the city, washing the tops of the buildings in orange and red pools of light. The window was still open, and she slid her body through it as gracefully as she could. She could hear water running and guessed Clint was in the shower. Natasha chided herself viciously and mentally. They’d shared a room and a bed before; it wasn’t as if this was anything new. She had seen him at his worst and his best, and helped him heal when it didn’t end up being time for his best. Nothing had changed.

 _And yet, it had_. Natasha threw her boots into a corner more violently than they deserved. They would both be gone the next day, back with the rest of the team, and she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone except herself anymore. She sat down on the floor and started stretching, trying to relax her stiff muscles.

 

***

 

They didn’t share anything that night, from thoughts to a bed, and in the morning they gathered their things and left the hotel in silence. Fury picked them up and drove them to the Helicarrier, and still Natasha spoke only when it was required. As soon as they were on board, she locked herself in her room and refused to talk to anybody. Surprisingly enough, it was Pepper who finally kept knocking until Natasha kicked open the door with murder on her face, only to be met with Pepper’s resolute I’m-not-going-to-leave-until-you-come-out face. Natasha grudgingly followed Pepper to the main meeting room, thinking to herself that she could understand why Stark loved this woman so much. Pepper was quite the formidable force when she was determined, and Natasha had to admire that.

The meeting room contained Stark, Agent Hill, Fury, and Clint, seated around the table, and when Pepper brought Natasha in, Stark jumped to his feet immediately and proclaimed Pepper a “miracle woman, bringing the spider out of her cave.” Natasha scowled at him as she sat down as far away from Clint as possible, fuming and wishing she didn’t like Pepper so much.

 

***

 

They discussed the recent Battle of New York, and wondered together what had happened to Loki, and if he was getting the punishment he deserved. Steve was training again, although he regularly called in and was doing well, as far as they could tell. Banner was working as a doctor again; he hadn’t wanted to leave so abruptly when Natasha had arrived to “persuade” him, and his messages were full of worry for the sick people he was dealing with. Stark was working on rebuilding the Tower, and Fury was, as always, trying to convince the Council and regulate the entire idea of the Avengers that had started the mess in the first place. Natasha didn’t talk about what she’d been doing, although she could feel Clint watching her, waiting for her to say something.

 

***

 

When the meeting was over Natasha stormed back to her room. She wasn’t even sure why she felt so angry; she just knew needed to attack something, fight something, hit something. She ended up pacing around the room, trying to repress the urge to run to the training area and beat the shit out of the practice dummies.

She expected the knock when it came, but that didn’t make it any less difficult to hear. “Come in, Agent Barton,” Natasha called wearily through the door, and Clint pushed it open with a slight look of puzzlement on his face.

“How’d you know it was me?”

Natasha didn’t tell him the real reason, that she’d heard his footsteps often enough and knew his patterns too well not to know when he would knock on her door. “I took a wild guess,” she said instead, knowing he would recognise where the phrase came from.

Clint raised one eyebrow, a trick Natasha resolved to teach herself when she had time. “Of course you did. Nat, can I talk to you for a moment?”

There really would be no way to get out of it, and she would have to face him sooner or later in any case. “If it really is a moment,” Natasha said, her fingers itching to hit something. She hadn’t been in the Helicarrier for a while; being enclosed made her restless.

“All right, then. Well, ah,” and Clint looked awkwardly around the room. He was clearly visualising getting out of the situation, and Natasha couldn’t blame him in the least. After all, she was the one thinking about running and attacking things. “I’m sorry for . . . what happened in France.”

“That’s fine,” Natasha said, although it wasn’t. “So am I.”

“I know, but . . . I don’t know what I was thinking. Nat . . . Tasha . . . ,” and he rubbed his neck awkwardly; Natasha noticed he was still wearing his shooting gloves. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have . . . done that.”

Natasha shook her head. “It isn’t a problem. We can pretend it never happened, if you want.” She didn’t know what she wanted his answer to be, but it didn’t matter. Of course it didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

“No, that’s not what I meant . . .” Clint sighed heavily and leaned back against the wall. “Natasha—I meant I don’t—oh, forget it.” He started to open the door again, the turned back. “You probably hate me. I should leave.”

“I don’t hate you,” Natasha said, shaking her head in disbelief. “In fact, I—” She stopped abruptly. No, she wasn’t going to say anything else. “Maybe you’re right, you should leave.”

“What were you going to say?”

“Nothing,” Natasha snapped, suddenly irritated with him and the world in general. “I don’t hate you.”

“That wasn’t what you were going to say.”

Natasha rubbed her eyes with her hands. She was having a hard time focusing on the conversation when she couldn’t decide if she wanted to hit Clint or something else. “No, that wasn’t what I was going to say, but also no, it doesn’t matter.”

“Natasha.” Clint caught her wrists and Natasha thought of how likely it was that had anyone else touched her, they would have regretted it immediately. “What were you going to say?”

And Natasha shoved him back, away from here, conflicted and unsure, but she followed him to the wall and they ended up stumbling backwards, hitting the wall awkwardly, and she crashed their mouths together, closing her eyes this time.

Clint hesitated before he returned the kiss, and then his hands were on her shoulders and her back, and Natasha grabbed onto his shoulders as well, because if there was one thing she knew how to do it was kiss properly. She pushed his head back and kissed his cheek and his jaw, moving her lips over the bruises he’d gotten in France, feeling the roughness of his armour against her chest and wanting more of it.

Natasha pulled herself back for a moment, forcing herself not to lose her focus, because after all she was a trained Russian assassin who didn’t let anything confuse her. “Clint,” she whispered. She was close enough that she could feel his breath stirring her hair. “I don’t hate you.”

He laughed and pulled her closer again, kissing the top of her head. “I’m glad of that, Agent Romanov.”

It was so hard to heal herself when she didn’t know who she would be without her scars, but Natasha liked to think she was learning how to wear them more proudly. “Clint, I’m sorry about France.”

“That was my fault.” And here it was again, that perpetual self-blame that was one of the things about him that she hated.

“No, it was mine.” Natasha raised her eyes to look directly into his, daring him to argue. “If I ever decide that the best way to get rid of something is to ignore it and jump out the window, shoot me.”

“Of course.” He sounded amused, and Natasha once again didn’t know if she wanted to kiss him or kill him. Possibly both, although only in that order. She settled for grabbing him around the neck and pulling him down into another kiss, rough and meaningful, pulling his body towards hers and away from the door. The spy part of her started screaming again, warning her not to lose herself in the least, but for once the mantra of  _Focus, Natasha_ wasn’t enough to block out her own choices. She could do what she wanted.

Then there was a sharp knock on the door and Stark ’s voice saying, “Hey, Natasha, have you seen—?” and then he stopped in the doorway, and Natasha jumped back less in surprise than in irritation. “Oh,” Stark said, comprehension dawning on his face, then “Oh—shit,” and he backed out of the room as quickly as he had come in, and Natasha could hear him yelling something mostly incoherent about Steve owing him twenty bucks.

Natasha settled herself against Clint’s chest, laughing slightly. “I think there’s been a bet on. How amusing.”

“Amusing indeed,” Clint said dryly, sounding not at all amused, but Natasha didn’t stop smiling, because for once in her life the thrill that was coursing through her was brought on not by a fight but by a friend.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  [Tumblr.](spacestationtrustfund.tumblr.com)


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